


the holy light shines on the things you have done

by corleones



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:05:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corleones/pseuds/corleones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Muse didn't exist before she met the Artist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the holy light shines on the things you have done

Her Artist (for he is her artist as much as she is his Muse) is a man of letters and words, a mad man. In a different time perhaps, he could have been born in skirts and met his end in a Victorian mad house because he was the sort of man who believed in everything and nothing and by the virtue of such beliefs, made his life his most primary work of Art (aside from her but then everything the Artist did was aside from her.)

He believed in God but that is because he was God, nothing less and nothing more.

-

The Artist met the Muse in a crowded place where people picked out what they liked and paid for it in gold but revisionist history will tell you that this is not the way it was, the Muse was not the Muse then so she barely existed at all, rising like Venus from the seas and not standing on things like streets, wearing things like clothes, eating things like food.

The Muse was formless before she met the Artist - except she never met the Artist - o, let us start again -

The Muse didn't exist before she met the Artist.

The Artist made the Muse out of the bones and flesh of a girl who was no one and a dress that filled with light when he gave it to her.

Bones and flesh and a dress. This is how he made the Muse.

-

The Artist lay with Muse in his bed, in the large house with glass windows where he kept her, hidden from the world so that no one else could see her and no one else could have her. This was not jealousy, the Artist would tell you, one can only be jealous of a thing that you do not fully possess and the Muse belonged to him so wholly that the idea of jealousy does not factor in. He was protecting her, her body and her light, so pure that the mere gaze of a mortal man (a man who was not him) could taint it and corrupt the whole.

He lay with Her in the way that a man lies with a woman or a husband with his wife or (more commonly) with his mistress but of course the Muse was neither and therefore, it did not matter that they were not married.

Her body was part of his, her body was a canvas, an art that he had created so there was no question of sin.

(The Artist believed in God because he was God.)

-

The Muse lived in the Artist's house, though perhaps that is a wrong way to phrase this - let us start again -

The Muse existed in the Artist's house and she lived in his paintings and his poetry, lived in his brush stroke and his oil, lived in his ink and his words and her body was only a pale wild thing, the real Muse was in the paintings and the poetry.

In his art, the Muse became immortal and as her true self, the self that existed in those things that were allowed to leave the house, those things that went to publishing house to printed into books, pawed by a thousand grubby hands or hung in museums and galleries where anyone's eyes could devour her - as her self in his work grew stronger, the physical body, that weak useless lower self of hers began to wane. Such a fragile, breakable thing, so useless when her Artist, her God had given her already the greatest gift of immortality.

The Muse and her body stood alone in their rooms and outside this confinement, she lived immortal, burning bright in her dresses with a the fire of many suns and her Artist smiled and he was proud as Gods tend to be when their creations are beautiful. He created many things, the Artist, many lovely muses but she was his crowning glory. Every time he came back from his travels he would tell her this, sit by the bedside where her body lay and tell her he loved her for this.

One day, he came home and drew back the curtains.

"I would love to see my Muse in the light," he thought aloud. He hoped to see the sun grow wide and hot on pale limbs. He hoped to lie with her body in this bed where he kept her.

But the Muse had not seen the sun for many a day and in its bright fiery light, her poor weak bones collapsed.

She melted away like the last drops of candle wax with no wick to keep them steady.


End file.
